Lower East Side Food Tour

Today was a delicious day.  It began with a peanut buttered flat bread and coffee for breakfast.  Although not necessarily considered one of the world’s greatest culinary delights, I thoroughly enjoy it as a morning starter.

The real fun, though began with the food tour.  In October 2008, when my mom came to visit, I signed us up for a food tour through the UVa Club.  We did a dessert and wine tour around the 70s on the Upper West Side.  The company that provided the guides and was City Food Tours.  We enjoyed it so much, I thought it would be great to go on another.

Fast forward to today and I’m on a tasting tour of the Lower East Side.  It’s the place of immigrants.  Early in the history of the city, it was farm land, but soon after the Revolutionary War, it began to become a merchant’s district.  In the mid 19th century, the successive waves of immigrants seemed to find their way to the dilapidated tenements that characterized the area and left their ethnic imprint.

Although we saw quite a bit of Chinatown’s spillage into the Lower East Side, Nicole pointed out quite a few Jewish places that show the Old World past of the businesses and neighborhoods.

The Doughnut Plant

We began the tour with the Doughnut Plant.  I’m not really a big donut fan, but these are made with fresh, organic, homemade ingredients.  Apparently the creme brule donut is to die for.  The owner spent a couple months perfecting the donut.  We had pistachio donuts and cranberry jam filled donuts.  They were light, sweet, and delicious.  When we finished, I didn’t have any of the heavy feeling I usually get after thinking about eating a Dunkin Donut.

From there, we moved to the Bialy place, Kossar’s.  I’d never heard of a bialy, much less tried one, before I moved here to New York.  They are similar to a bagel, but not quite.  They are not boiled before they’re baked, they don’t have a hole in the center, and usually there is a sprinkle of real onion in the middle.  The result is a tasty treat – when well done – that hits the spot.  Not too heavy, not to light.

Pickles!

Next stop was the Pickle Guys.  I’m not really a pickle fan; I enjoy a good relish like everyone else, so I wasn’t terribly excited.  Still, how do you expand your horizons without trying something new?  Nicole, our guide, gave us three varieties of pickles – a new pickle, a sour pickle, and pickled carrots.  The carrots were soaked in vinegar and had a heated kick to them.  They were my favorite.  The pickles were cucumbers soaked in the brine solution for varying lengths of time.  The full sour pickle has soaked the longest and tasted, well, sour.  Imagine that.  The new pickle tasted more like a salty cucumber.

We wandered north, toward Houston Street, where we stopped for a coffee at the Roasting Plant.  There a former Starbucks executive, and manufacturing engineer, had designed a machine to roast, grind, and brew your coffee to order.  Guatemalan coffee too light and the Yirgacheffe too bold?  No problem, just ask the staff to mix them to your preference.  The system looks like a 1980′s sci-fi mail chute with the vacuum tubes that connect the roaster to the storage spots to the grinder.  Still, you have to admit, the coffee was delicious.  I would highly recommend a visit, paired with a tour of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, to kick start your day.

Coffee!?!?

After the Roasting Plant, we went to Piada for a sandwich.  I had La Dolce Vita, which is bresaola, parmigiano, and arugula.  There was also a balsamic vinegar to give it a little umpf.  Delicious.  No two ways about it.  Simple and delicious.  We chased the sandwich with a chocolate bon bon from the Cocoa Bar.

It was a great morning with beautiful weather – sunny and mostly above freezing – that complimented the gastronomic delights we sampled.  I highly recommend this tour – Nicole was a great guide – not only for the food, but also the wander through the ancient history of New York.